In a tepee in Florida, I once met a psychic who chatted to my dead uncle. The process of communication with the afterlife – more of an exchange than a conversation – has always fascinated me. "I go down into this big, black hole and open myself up," the psychic explained to me. "The spirits appear above me, as if they're on a circular balcony, and start shouting, calling out names and messages." Like me, the young Scottish cricketer Angus Bell was influenced by the spirit world. A message conveyed to him by a psychic changed the course of his life.

On a disarmingly artless and batty premise, Bell sets off from Glasgow to play cricket across eastern Europe. He decides – or rather his late, great uncle Ivor instructs him – to uncover the hidden story of the Slavic game, and to score his elusive first century. On an ice rink inside a former Soviet missile factory, he joins the Estonian national team, the worst international squad in the world. In Bosnia, he discovers that pitches need to be cleared of shrapnel and spent shells before matches. In Prague, he avoids fingerless Tamil Tiger fielders. In Slovakia, he plays with a team manned exclusively by gardeners. At the Slovenian border, guards try to convince him that real cricket requires the active participation of horses.

Probably the finest of Bell's many stories unfolds in Serbia, where a misunderstanding casts him as an ambassador from the European Cricket Council, sent to train the fledgling national squad. His performance at an impromptu press conference so impresses the Serbian officials that he is invited "to impregnate as many local girls as possible … creating a generation of Serbian cricketers". On the pitch later that afternoon, he is brought down to earth when one fresh-faced player inspects the new kit and asks him, "What is a bat, please?"

Between overs, Bell bowls impressive googlies of fact and history. In 1901, the former England captain C.B. Fry almost became King of Albania. Serbia's cricket captain once worked for MI6, helping to mastermind the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic and his extradition to the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. In 1996, a Brunei prince arranged a celebrity match with 22 female scorers and a harem tent on the boundary. The Ljubljana CC was formed by a group of expat translators. There are sixteen cricket teams at the Odessa State Medical University.

Slogging the Slavs is a hilarious, easy read bursting with manic energy and youthful exuberance. It is rich with dry humour and completely free of pretence (Bell's mother launders his whites before the journey; he is so awed on meeting the captain of one international team that he considers asking for an autograph). His language is colourful and evocative; stepping into a Tallinn hotel room with orange walls and a framed portrait of David Bowie is like "being beamed into a work of science fiction, sponsored by easyJet". Even his occasional stumbles into the juvenile - a fascination with his own earwax and marking his territory "with a slash" – are forgivable.

The book's failing, however, is its lack of editing. An early, aggressive scene of five Londoners' ignorance of Scotland serves no purpose, much like a pointless excursion to Montenegro (included only to relay the anecdote that Montenegrin drivers are known as Rolling Stones because so many of them crash off cliffs). Whole countries could have been deleted from the itinerary, or at least their highlights incorporated into other chapters.

At times, Bell seems simply to be checking off every wicket between Berlin and Moscow. This superfluity of words dilutes the power of his writing and his wonderful characters: the Ukrainian-Indian restaurateur who portrays Trotsky as a keen player, the Nepalese heart-and-lung surgeon who met his wife on the Minsk cricket field, the defeated Austrian cricketer who chopped off the victor's thumb with a broken bat handle. Also, I would have enjoyed a bit of an exchange with the late, great uncle Ivor. After all, he is key to Bell's motivation, living his life through his great nephew. Unfortunately, in the book their relationship is, well, dead.

"When I was a whippersnapper I always wanted to play international cricket," writes Bell. "I dreamed of steaming in as a tearaway for England and uprooting Brian Lara's off stump. It was a sad day at school when … I realised I was never going to make it." Bell may not have earned his first international cap for England, Scotland or even Slovakia. He may not have scored his first century. But between Polish brothels and a Bosnian minefield, he has produced a fine first book. I await his next with anticipation, ready to be knocked for six again.

•Rory MacLean's latest book, Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to India, is published by Penguin Viking. Buy it at the Guardian bookshop.

Slogging The Slavs by Angus Bell can be purchased directly from thepublisher at a reduced price of £8.99, with free postage in the UK.Visit fat-controller.com